What’s the statute of limitations for deicide? One lawyer intends to find out.
Dola Indidis, a Roman Catholic and onetime spokesman for the Kenyan Judiciary, intends to charge the Roman Emperor Tiberius, Pontius Pilate, King Herod, a number of Jewish elders, and the modern states of Italy and Israel with the unlawful trial and subsequent crucifixion of Jesus, nearly two thousand years ago. Yes, he’s suing the Jews (well, at least, the Jewish state) for killing Christ.
Oooooooh boy.
As reported on Tuesday afternoon by The Jerusalem Post, citing Kenyan news outlet The Nairobian:
Evidence today is on record in the bible, and you cannot discredit the bible,” Indidis told Kenyan Citizen News.
[…]
I filed the case because it’s my duty to uphold the dignity of Jesus and I have gone to the ICJ to seek justice for the man from Nazareth,” Indidid told the Nairobian. “His selective and malicious prosecution violated his human rights through judicial misconduct, abuse of office bias and prejudice.”
Indidis apparently named the states of Italy and Israel in the lawsuit because upon the attainment of independence, the two states incorporated the laws of the Roman Empire, those in force at the time of the Crucifixion.
Crazy at it may sound, part of me hopes this does make it to court, if only to once and for all put an end to the the question of whether Jews killed Jesus (SPOILER: Nope). After all, it was David Irving’s failed lawsuit against Deborah Lipstadt which, in effect, established the legal case that Holocaust denial is, in fact, denial of fact. Wouldn’t life be easier if, the next time some jerk starts huffing and puffing about how the Jews killed Jesus, instead of delving into the complicated historical reasons why they’re wrong, you could just yawn, and point to a court ruling?
Unfortunately, it looks like the case might never see the light of day. The Post continues:
When asked about the case, a spokesperson from the IJC told legal news website Legal Cheek, “The ICJ has no jurisdiction for such a case. The ICJ settles disputes between states. It is not even theoretically possible for us to consider this case.”
Bummer.
Still, I’m gonna have to start going through my spam-folder a little more carefully; Instead of “offers” for $500,000, my next email from a Kenyan lawyer might just be a court summons.
Jesus, while hanging on his cross, said, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” (Jewish Annotated New Testament, Luke 23.34, p.148) This glory hound is defying his own deity’s documented wish to file no charges and is contradicting his declaration that noone was culpable.
This should go to court. The first thing that this fool needs to prove is that Jesus actually existed. Given the contradictions in the new testament, that would be a particularly difficult case to prove in court.
“The first thing that this fool needs to prove is that Jesus actually existed.”
As well as that the New Testament provides an historically accurate account, which is demonstrably untrue.
Good morning! I’m thinking that Pontius Pilot had Jesus killed? P. P. was scared to death and wanted to kill Christ? We weren’t there–we have no idea WHAT HAPPENED. Member that game, where you whisper in someones ear and it reaches the end, and comes out badly? Thousands of years later the Bible was written and they remember that part? That it was an old story and about voting someone off the island? I’m thinking that Jesus was supposed to die for sins, and that’s why he was there? So what happened, was supposed to happen, and his dying was perfect so you could believe? I guess things always need to be blamed on someone for some people. This is exactly how it should have gone down. Don’t you get it–it would never have worked if he lived a long life. Then you wouldn’t have the dying, bleeding Jesus on jewelry or hanging in churches or museums..to make you feel guilty and shamed and terrible and hating!!!! It works so much better this way, don’t you think. And the hating part, it’s all to get you to not pay attention to politics and keep your little minds busy, so you don’t hurt yourself, when you are the one that has the problem–you can always hate on someone!!1 Cool, huh? Nooo Peace.
One of the commandments says, “Thou shalt not worship any other g-ds before H-m. That’s the bottom line! ‘Nuff said!
Only problem with quoting the New Testament as historical fact is that it did not exist until three centuries after Jesus (AKA Joshua)lived. Besides, the committee that decided what was to be placed in the New Testament was a bunch of white guys from Greece and Italy. (No Trojan jokes please.)
Oh, let’s get this whole thing over with. I did it. I admit it. I did it. Happy?
A court procedure that takes into account the realities of Jewish law and the fact that we were colonized by Rome at the time would likely vindicate the Jewish people but not the Romans. Kenyans still remember the British as colonial masters as a matter of history. They might see the Zealots as being like the Mau-Mau.
Also readers here might seek out Haim Cohn’s (late former Chief Justice of Israel’s Supreme Court) excellent legal analysis of Jesus’ trial and execution “The Trial and Death of Jesus.
There is the small problem of the Babylonian Talmud which contains writing which asserts (?) that we did do IT’- Does not even mention the Romans. And the eternal fate of (a Radical Rabbi?). I fail to see how we can bash gentiles for what they may find in our own books. But, yes I do find the court case Ugly if not more so.
MIKE SHAPIRO I find your obnoxious statements particularly unsettling. As a Jew if anyone ever said to me ” first thing fool….you need to prove that Maimonides actually existed”…or how about Moses? Can I actually prove that. Even as a Jew I highly doubt Jesus NEVER existed, I think most Jews (especially according to the teachings of their Rabbi’s through time (Not by their own actual reading for themselves) that he is not who Christians feel he is, not that he never existed.
I believe in Moses and Maimonides because I have Faith they existed not because I can prove it. But your intolerance of other’s faith is exactly the hypocritical thinking that gives other Yids a bad name (Thank you very much) I bet you are the first one to spout off “Anti-semitism and anti-semite” about the way others view you and your religious beliefs…while you talk about their faiths through the other side of your mouth!
Anyone interested in this should know that leading Christian scholars long ago disproved through extensive research (not mere opinion) that we Jews had ANY involvement in the death of Jesus. The best presentation of the research is Who Killed Jesus? by Dominic Crossan. In my opinion, one of the most important books! Read it!
Actually, JD, there are absolutely no contemporary accounts of the existence of Jesus of Nazareth, and the Romans wrote about almost everything. The closest thing to a “contemporary” account is Josephus and he was born some years after the crucifixion supposedly took place.
As to Maimonides, we have his writings (not later, conflicting, accounts)and other contemporaneous evidence of his existence.
Moses?? Well, that is a very good question. There is no more external evidence of his existence than there is of Jesus. Much of the continual insistence on the importance and existence of these two figures may well account for the drop in numbers and commitment of those who profess adherence to both Judaism and Christianity and the concurrent rise in numbers of those who call themselves Atheists and/or Agnostics.
I’ve looked over the comments and am kind of dismayed with the misinformation in some of them.
Did Jesus exist? If he did not then someone created a really credible fictional character, because Jesus was very much a Jew of his time. I do not think that he considered himself the messiah, but even if he did (and there were a lot of would-be messiahs around at the time) there is nothing in Judaism that says that the Messiah is a divinity, let alone God.
Pontius Pilate ruled Judea for a decade and probably crucified thousands of Jews. He was nothing like the sympathetic character in the Gospels. In the end he was recalled to Rome for over-reaching.
Josephus was born a few years after the likely death of Jesus. He wrote histories of the Jewish people and a rebuttal to an anti-Jewish book. To the Romans Jesus of Nazareth would have been one would-be Jewish king among many along with thousands of assorted anti-Roman Jews in Judea. The Jesus passage in Josephus was alost certainly added by Christians long after Josephus’s death. There is plenty of evidence for this. Oe indication is that Jesus is not discussed in the passage from Josephus about Jewish messiahs where he certainly would have put it.
If there is a passage in the Talmud that says we were responsible for killing Jesus I’m pretty sure that anti-Jewish Christian sources would have been trumpeting it. The passage likely referred to is on Sanhedrin 43a-b. “On (Sabbath eve and) the eve of Passover Jesus the Nazarene was hanged and a herald went forth before him forty days heralding, ‘Jesus the Nazarene is going forth to be stoned because he practiced sorcery and instigated and seduced Israel to idolatry. Whoever knows anything in defense may come and state it.’ But since they did not find anything in his defense they hanged him on (Sabbath eve and) the eve of Passover. Ulla said: Do you suppose that Jesus the Nazarene was one for whom a defense could be made? He was a mesit (someone who instigated Israel to idolatry), concerning whom the Merciful [God]says: Show him no compassion and do not shield him (Deut. 13:9). With Jesus the Nazarene it was different. For he was close to the government.”
Here’s what you need to know about this passage. The history of the Talmud text is complicated. It is more than a little likely that there are passages that were added long after the Saboraim published it. Some of these are Jewish reactions to Christianity and some are changes forced by The Church. It is easy to see such changes in our siddur. For example Adon Olam was written with six verses (still sung by some Sephardim), but one verse (it begins “B’li Shinui”) has been removed from Ashkenazi liturgy. What we see in this Talmudic passage is Jewish justification for being involved in the death of Jesus on the basis of Jewish law and judicial process. In fact Jesus was executed under Roman law with the connivance of high-level Jewish collaborators (at that time the Kohen Gadol was essentially a Roman official who served at the pleasure of the Procurator, i.e. Pilate in this case).
The bottom line is the Jesus of Nazareth was born a Jew, lived as a Jew, taught a Jewish message primarily to Jews, and was executed by the Romans for rebellion against Rome as a Jew.
I write this gantze megillah because even most rabbis do not know the relevant history.
Again I recommend Haim Cohn’s book as the most serious study of the trial and death of Jesus in the context of Jewish law, Roman law, and the history of that period.
I should also point out here that Jesus never intended to stray from Judaism (“not one jot nor tittle of the law shall pass away”). The Church as a non-Jewish institution was invented largely by Paul in order to bring Jewish principles (but not Halachah) to the pagan world.
I recommend Reza Aslan’s book, “Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth,” for a scholarly analysis of Jesus the Jewish revolutionary (not son of God)seeking to overthrow Roman oppression and Jewish collaborators with brutal Roman rule.
The Book of Zechariah 12:10 explicitly states that “And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son”.
The momentous petition by Dola Indidis at the ICJ in the Hague is envisaged to bring the Jews and the State of Israel to the realization that Jesus of Nazareth was innocently killed.
David W. Nerubucha
Nairobi, Kenya
http://www.davidnerubucha.com
or
http://www.thekingjesuscommunitychurch.org
All d evidence which potray d coming of d son of God all pointed to be jesus christ,,,he died and resurrected and was withness by a lot of people dat where in existence as at bc and d ressurrection after ad,,,,if u dnt belief it how come his name is still powerful,,,,,how come miracles can still be perform using is name,,,,,,,,,,,
Obviously VIC is a lurker here. His post is a statement of Christian belief (albeit showing a rather poor grasp of the English language). The only “evidence” for the divinity of Jesus is contained in Christian scripture. That is a matter of faith and not reason. Also in Judaism there is no such concept as “son of God” in the Christian sense. Ben Elokim in Hebrew or Aramaic simply means a godly person or may refer to all human beings as children of Hashem. I would like to see more Christians less concerned with doctrines and more concerned with following the ethical teachings of the Nazarene. Those are based on Jewish principles and Jewish ideas. For once I’d like to see a Christian post the Beatitudes (Jesus’ speech where he says things like, “Blessed be the peacemakers…”)instead of the Ten Commandments. A true follow of Jesus would not persecute Jews or try to convert them to another faith.